Building a prototype in a product design procedure is essential to design and usability evaluation. However, most processes in building the prototype are performed manually, thereby lowering reusability of the prototype and raising time and cost for building the prototype. Further, in a conventional evaluation method based on user design preference, errors in the product are collected via beta tests or interviews just before a release of the product to a market, and thus cost for correcting the errors increases significantly.
In recent, a virtual reality system for building a prototype of a product by allowing a quick and easy exchange of components and providing natural user interaction is proposed. Accordingly, a system capable of predicting user design preference for a mobile device before a release of a product by using a virtual reality based prototype becomes to be needed.
In relation to a conventional technology for evaluating a design of a mobile device using a virtual reality based prototype, U.S. patent Laid-Open application Ser. No. 10/954,448 entitled “VIRTUAL REALITY BASED PROTOTYPING SYSTEM FOR MEDICAL DEVICES” proposes a virtual reality based prototype capable of changing design parameters while operating a virtual model of a medical device and simulating a medical procedure relating to the virtual model. However, it does not disclose a design parameter classification method for design evaluation and a realistic visualization method.
Further, the first virtual reality based prototyping methodology for electronics and telecommunication products developed by researchers in the university of Oulu, Finland and VTT Electronics (“Virtual Reality Prototyping—a Framework for the Development of Electronics and Telecommunication Products”, in Proc. of 8th IEEE International Workshop on Rapid System Prototyping, 1997) does not provide a simulation on motions and functions of the product as well as a virtual mobile device looking similar to a real product, thus resulting in insufficient reality to design evaluation using virtual reality technologies.
As described above, technologies for evaluating a design of a mobile device using conventional prototyping have drawbacks in that it cannot provide a realistic image and natural user interaction. That is, it cannot provide a high-quality image looking similar to a real product and a simulation on motions and functions of the product for design evaluation by using virtual reality technologies.